Hey all...Thanks for being patient with me! First, when Paul said, "As you wish." it was in the "Princess-Bride" sense. I love that movie!

Second, ya'll rock. Here's chapter 14, and I swear, I'll start updating more often...it's just hard with Senior year of HS and all..

Suze's POV:

"Susannah, what are you doing here? And what is HE doing here?" Jesse asked, taking my hand and glaring at Paul.

"Don't go all defensive, Rico." Paul said. "I'm watching over Suze. Her biological parents are out to get her."

"What?!" Jesse yelled.

"I'm OK. So is the baby." I said quickly to calm him down. "But I'm not going back there."

"Obviously, Susannah." Jesse whispered into my hair as he held me tightly to him. Then Jesse did something that almost caused me to have a heart attack.

"Thank you for keeping my querida safe, Paul." Jesse said.

I think Paul was in shock. Nevertheless, he replied with, "No problem, Jesse. In a sense, she's my querida too."

I was confused for a minute until Paul said, "In a friend sense." and dematerialized.

Aw. Well, yay. Glad to see it only took death to get him to stop being all up on me.

Jesse continued to hug me, and then we went downstairs to find my Mom and Andy.

"Susie? Aren't you supposed to be in Maui?" Mom asked as we walked into the kitchen.

"Nope." I smiled. "At least, not anymore."

"Why not?" Andy asked, stirring a big pot of something.

"Well, I tend to not stay in the company of those who have ordered the deaths of me or my husband." I said, grinning and grabbing a Diet Coke from the fridge.

Mom paled and Andy stopped stirring the pot. "Sweetie, want to run that by us one more time?" Mom said.

I relayed everything Paul had told me to them, and finished with, "So, I had Paul dematerialize me here."

For a few minutes, Mom and Andy were in shock. Jesse rubbed my shoulders and patted my stomach- it was now somewhat obvious I was pregnant. Finally, I broke the silence by saying, "So, I'm just going to go to bed now. Kind of worn out."

They nodded, and Jesse and I went back to our room. After several rounds of the joys of married life, we both fell asleep.

"You think you can just run away, Susannah?"

What?! No! This is dreamland! Evil wanna-be murderers do NOT exist here!

"Wrong again, Susannah." Ron's voice was big and booming in the shadowland. "You should have taken Paul up on his shifter lessons."

Why? He didn't want to teach me about shifting, he wanted to get in my pants!

"1 out of 2 wrong. Paul did want you in that sense. He also wanted to warn you about the dangers of shifters going to the shadowland...and dying there."

"Say what?!"

"Susannah, think about it. Your body is unprotected down there. Anything can happen to it. Should it die...you would stay up here."

NO! I WON'T LET IT HAPPEN!

So I shifted back to my body.

And saw Lara standing beside me, holding a handgun.

She pulled the trigger...